In recent years, Texte zur Kunst has regularly ­addressed the changing conditions in the art market and the question of value. This September issue now delves into various structural shifts in the artistic field that are currently transforming it into a resort-like environment. Proposed by Isabelle Graw, the neologism “resortization” activates the idea of the holiday resort as a heuristic tool for an analysis of ongoing changes in the art market’s economic and social infrastructure, both online and offline. The contributions explore the consequences of this structural transformation both for art criticism and for the conditions under which art is produced.

Resortization not only describes the tendency among various blue-chip galleries to follow some of their wealthy clients into the splendid isolation of exclusive luxury enclaves like Aspen, Saint-Tropez, or Monte-Carlo. Designating a process as such, the term resortization can also help us put a label on the transformation of the art field on social media, where processes of value formation are currently taking place. Unlike the insular holiday resort, Instagram and other platforms are in principle open to all. Still, the term also aptly describes the relocation of artistic activities into the digital space, which has likewise grown into a world of its own. That is why it makes sense to speak of a new structural transformation: the creation of both analog and digital resorts changes not only art’s public audiences but also the conditions of artistic production and artists’ systems of reference.

For a long time, people actually associated the internet with the promise of a renaissance of emancipatory and democratic structures. By empowering people to circumvent the entrenched privileged and mostly white gatekeepers, it facilitated a greater presence of diverse voices and minority positions. By now, however, dominant platform companies are turning it into a regulated sphere defined by the primacy of economic considerations – in short, one that resembles a resort. As the global lockdowns forced art institutions, galleries, and alternative spaces to close, the conversation moved online, reinforcing this development. New sales platforms (online viewing rooms) and the establishment of NFTs as a creative (and salable) medium, as well as the deluge of livestreams and Zoom events, served as a kind of temporary lifesaver for institutions, ­artists, and galleries, enabling them to both display and market art. In that sense, the art resort also brings back the word’s etymological roots – in Middle English, resort designated a place of succor and refuge.

To throw into relief these various structural changes of economic and social infrastructures implicit in the concept of resortization (to re-sort is equivocal – it can also refer to the act of re­arranging), Isabelle Graw outlines the impact of the state of affairs sketched above on processes of value creation both in the sphere of artistic production and for the work of critique in six theses. The growing influence of social media, which has been a mainspring of this development, is brought into focus in the roundtable conversation between the artists Jutta Koether, Julie Mehretu, and Avery Singer, moderated by Jakob Schillinger. They debate the consequences of the digital transformation for their respective practices as well as its participatory and perhaps emancipatory potentials for the global art world. A promise of independence and participation also resonates in many discussions around NFTs, prompting the artist and blockchain expert Sarah Friend to reflect on the origins of this supposedly barrier-eliminating technology and the abstraction it entails both from the process of value creation and from the concrete work of art itself. Questions of art’s self-referentiality are on the philosopher Francesca Raimondi’s mind as well when she observes how resorts reprise modern art’s postulated autonomy as farce.

The curator Amanda Schmitt and the art consultant Allan Schwartzman discuss so-called destination collections – extensive art collections that are often installed far away from urban centers and the various actors involved in the art market’s value-formation processes, in scenic settings that are part of the appeal. The consultant’s role, too, changes under these conditions. Because of the touristic and event quality of such installations, it can sometimes appear as if art is presented among souvenirs, as Jacob King’s report from a trip to Hauser & Wirth Somerset illustrates. Which status can an individual work of art have in an environment where everything – be it culinary pleasures, an arts-and-crafts studio, or the works on display – is rated as an “art experience”?

Yet the touristic aspect not only affects the presentation of and engagement with art. Residency programs for artists at remote locations can evoke romantic visions of creative work in solitary seclusion. The performance artist Ei Arakawa’s essay offers insight into his experience with the different expectations the hosting institutions invest in these programs, and the ambivalent role of the traveling artist. The economic and social gulf between the guests of holiday complexes and the people who live and work in these places is one of the concerns Cristina Nord addresses in her discussion of the TV series The White Lotus, which is set at a luxury resort hotel in Hawaii. She analyzes the desire for a readily consumable experience of the unfamiliar – which may well also be an apt characterization of art at the resort.

Translation: Gerrit Jackson